Chapter Text
Tatarasuna was loud in a way that settled into the bones once you’d stood there long enough. Metal shrieked when it cooled too quickly, the furnace complained with deep, irritated groans, and men shouted over the heat and fire until their voices grew rough with smoke and fatigue. It was not an elegant kind of noise, but Escher found it useful all the same, the sort that smoothed itself into patterns if you listened closely enough.
He liked it there. Noise masked intent, chaos followed rules once you understood where to apply pressure, and the Mikage Furnace responded beautifully to excess, strain, and just enough tampering to pass as innovation. Standing at the edge of the platform with his gloved hands folded neatly behind his back, Escher watched the data stream in real time, eyes half-lidded as figures scrolled through his mind. Crystal Marrow concentrations held steady, worker output stayed within tolerable margins, and heat thresholds behaved exactly as predicted. Everything was unfolding according to plan, which meant there was very little to occupy his attention.
Then something crossed the edge of his awareness that did not belong.
The young man, or rather something shaped like one, moved across the platform with a lightness that contrasted sharply with the workers’ hurried steps. He wore clothes that looked wrong in this place, untouched by soot or sweat, and he carried himself with a stillness that suggested fatigue simply did not apply to him. His expression was open in a way Escher immediately distrusted, the kind of openness that usually hid something unfinished.
A puppet, then.
Escher’s gaze sharpened as he took in the details: incomplete construction, artificial origin, an emotional response system present but rough around the edges. A discarded prototype, most likely, though whoever had made him had done better work than average. Interesting, if nothing else.
The puppet noticed the scrutiny and reacted in a way Escher did not expect. Instead of flinching, bowing, or performing any of the small rituals humans defaulted to around perceived authority, he simply tilted his head and looked back.
“You’re the mechanic,” the puppet said, his voice soft and careful. “From Fontaine.”
Escher smiled, pleasant and practiced. “That’s right.”
The puppet studied him for another moment, his gaze lingering on Escher’s face long enough to register as unusual. “You don’t sound like you’re from Fontaine,” he said.
Escher blinked once, then smoothed over the moment with ease. “I suppose I’ve been away for quite some time.”
That seemed to satisfy him. The puppet nodded as though the explanation filled in all the gaps that mattered and turned his attention back to the furnace, leaving Escher to tell himself that the brief flare of irritation was nothing more than professional pride being pricked.
They spoke more often after that, largely due to the puppet’s uncanny habit of appearing wherever Escher happened to be working. Sometimes he brought food, simple and still warm, and set it down nearby without ceremony. Other times he merely stood in companionable silence, watching the furnace with an attentiveness that suggested genuine curiosity . He never asked about the work itself, which was almost refreshing. Instead, his questions wandered elsewhere.
“Do you ever sleep?” he asked once.
Another time, quieter, “Does it bother you when they look at you like that?”
Escher answered when it amused him to do so and ignored him when it didn’t. The puppet accepted both responses with equal calm, as though either outcome fit neatly into his expectations.
One evening, when the smoke curled thicker than usual around the furnace and the heat pressed close to uncomfortable, Escher allowed a fragment of honesty to slip through his carefully maintained composure. “They’re dying faster than projected,” he said, his tone mild, almost conversational.
Kabukimono turned to look at him. “Is that bad?”
“For them? Yes,” Escher replied, lips curving faintly. “For the data? No.”
He waited for the recoil that usually followed statements like that, the moment when people finally noticed the sharp edges beneath the polish. Kabukimono was quiet instead, his expression thoughtful.
“You sound lonely when you say things like that,” he said at last.
Something in Escher’s chest twisted, sudden and unpleasant. “That’s an odd conclusion.”
Kabukimono shrugged. “You talk like you’re standing outside the world you’re describing.”
Escher laughed softly, incredulous despite himself. “You think I want to be?”
“I think,” Kabukimono said, choosing his words with care, “that you don’t think anyone would want you there.”
Silence settled between them, thickened by smoke and heat, and Escher turned away first, finding it easier to focus on the furnace than on the strange accuracy of the observation.
Ending things, when the time came, was simple. Niwa Hisahide died without hesitation, the furnace failed exactly as designed, and the heart was placed into the device and handed to Kabukimono along with a lie crafted so carefully it nearly resembled kindness. The mission parameters were fulfilled, the results clean enough to report. Kabukimono’s survival was unexpected but acceptable, an anomaly that did not disrupt the overall success.
Escher left Tatarasuna without looking back.
The report followed soon after, concise and efficient. The Mikage Furnace experiment was summarized, casualties tallied, data transmitted, conclusions drawn. At the end, almost as an afterthought, Escher added a brief note addressed to Pierro, observing that a puppet of unknown origin had shown remarkable resilience to Tatarigami exposure. Emotional stability remained questionable, adaptability impressively high, and should the subject be located, he might prove a worthwhile addition to the Fatui.
He closed the file and, for all practical purposes, stopped thinking about him.
Years passed, though the Doctor did not. Under a different name and behind a different mask, Il Dottore continued his work, stacking experiments into tidy conclusions while humanity remained endlessly fascinating and deeply disappointing. Every so often, however, a memory surfaced without warning: a quiet voice asking if he slept, a look that saw too much and stayed anyway, a gentleness that had been both baffling and irritating. He filed it away as unfinished business and moved on.
Then, one day, while reviewing reports entirely unrelated, the thought surfaced with uncomfortable clarity. Oh.
He paused and reviewed the data again, slower this time, and the conclusion held.
That had been affection.
The realization settled gradually, like a reaction delayed by years of improper conditions, and Dottore scoffed under his breath. “How inefficient,” he muttered, though the sound carried more wry amusement than disdain.
His gaze drifted to an old archived correspondence he had barely noticed at the time, the recommendation tucked neatly at the end. For the first time, he felt something warm and unfamiliar toward his past self, a faint approval that lingered longer than expected.
At least I had the foresight to tell Pierro, he thought, allowing himself the indulgence of the sentiment. Who knew where the puppet might have ended up otherwise?